Two years after he was set on fire, a retrial is ready in David Wicks' burning death

Juan Venegas, right, and defense attorney Michael Borges, are shown during last year's murder trial that ended in a mistrial when jurors were unable to reach a unanimous verdict.(Photo: Jim Schultz/Record Searchlight)Buy Photo

The long-awaited retrial of a Redding man charged with murder in the December 2016 burning death of a 54-year-old Burney man is finally getting underway.

Jury selection is expected to begin next week after a Shasta County Superior Court judge was assigned Wednesday to preside over the retrial.

Juan Manuel Venegas, 41, who has been in jail custody since Jan. 19, 2017, was in a Shasta County courtroom Wednesday as trial judge Tamara Wood met with prosecutor Patricia Van Ert and defense attorney Michael Borges to go over the trial's schedule and other pre-trial issues.

Venegas, a former Johnson Park area resident who later moved to Redding, is charged with first-degree murder, aggravated mayhem and a torture enhancement in the violent Dec. 21, 2016, death of David Wicks, 54, of Burney.

It's estimated the retrial will take about six to eight weeks and should wrap up shortly before the Thanksgiving holiday.

But there's going to be a lot of ground to cover before a jury is picked and jurors start to actually hear the case.

Wood, who will be asked to rule on a variety of defense and prosecution motions and other matters in the coming days, took two trips from her office into the courtroom as she carried in large stacks of case-related files.

"They are quite voluminous," she said, adding she has not thoroughly read the files since she was only assigned to the trial earlier that morning.

Still, she does have some familiarity with the case.

She ruled on a defense motion by Borges in December asking to have three prosecutors, including District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett, held in contempt of a court order that was designed to protect crucial trial evidence from being tampered or altered.

Borges claimed prosecutors allowed sealed evidence, specifically a yellow rain suit that law enforcement and prosecutors believe Venegas was wearing at the time of the murder, to be opened and tampered with by investigators after the mistrial.

But Wood rejected that motion, saying there was insufficient evidence to show the order was violated with deliberate intent.

Prosecutors also maintained the rain suit was not changed, damaged or altered in any way.

The two-piece rain suit is a crucial piece of physical evidence in the murder trial because prosecutors say forensic tests conducted by the California Department of Justice revealed Venegas' DNA was found on the inside wrist cuffs.

At last year's trial, Borges argued Venegas is not the same man clad in a yellow rain suit shown in a surveillance video setting Wicks on fire.

That man's face on the video is not visible and Borges has blamed another man, possibly two, in Wicks' death.

The Record Searchlight is not naming the other two men identified because they haven't been charged in relation to Wicks' murder.

But prosecutors, however, have said physical evidence, including DNA and statements made by Venegas to others in what they said were an attempt to provide him with an alibi, all point to him being guilty of the murder.

Venegas is facing life in prison without parole if retried and convicted of the charges against him.